Divinities in Twilight

After a rest, the party takes the three men the Infinites saw fit to spare and head to Unquestionable Goods & Co.’s headquarters in Temple Quarter.

The address leads them to a nondescript one-story building in the oldest part of the quarter; it doesn’t have any signage or other identifying marks. As the party approaches, they begin discussing a plan.

Krrk’thir, Olli and Malek decide to try to infiltrate, rather than bash, their way into the building. Sargok is clearly annoyed, but decides to stand down and give them a chance; Almak seems amused by the whole process and stands aside.

The trio decide to disguise themselves for varying reasons; Olli changes out his mask, Malek is able to pass as a Southron and Krrk’thir makes an excellent set of props that do little to hide his Skitterax nature. The group, with Olli in the lead, knock on the door.

With a little fast talk and the information gleaned from ledgers stolen in the last part, Olli is able to convince the burly Southron who answers the door to let the party in. The group loiters in a sparsely appointed room with a pair of Southrons, one of whom is dispatched to pay an outstanding debt – to a different trading company, not the party, natch – while a group of elves sits at a table drinking some kind of cloudy liquid. (They show the same signs of mind control that others have shown to this point.)

As one of the Southrons fetches the cash, Krrk’thir – convinced he’s passing as Southron, and not as some exceedingly eccentric Skitterax – tries to pal it up with the elves. They give him the thousand-yard stare as Olli desperately tries to keep the other Southron’s attention on himself.

When the party is paid – with blood money they’re not actually owed, natch – the Southrons begin trying to usher the group out. Seizing the initiative, Olli uses Thunder Wave to initiate combat, and raises the alarm for the rest of the party to join.

Almak tells the young Infinites to stay outside and guard the door. In the ensuing melee, the party kills most of the attackers, including the two Southrons, but knock out two of the elves.

After dispatching the guards at the Unquestionable Goods & Co. caravan, the players barge into the lone wagon – only to find an impossibly large space on the inside. Sigmund, a worshiper of The Nameless One, realizes that the only way to create such a space is to tap into the waygates – something The Nameless One would not take lightly.

The hallway the characters are staring into is decked in several version of the holy symbol of Adramalech, broken swords – a direct insult to Klaeh’mak – and a strange symbol featuring a scarab in front of a solar disk.

The party begins investigating the hall and opening doors; Sigmund picks the lock on the first door, which opens with a resounding “thunk.” The first is a storeroom, filled with linens, oils, resins, spices, salts and bales of stracotum, the herb that led the party here.

When Sigmund picks the lock on the second, it also opens with a heavy sound – and a dazed elven warrior slams the door open in his face. A half-dozen fighters – Southrons and elves – swarm into the hallway from the remaining rooms. In the pitched battle, Olli charges into the fray, using the Thunder Wave that was so detrimental just the day before, incapacitating some of the attackers. While no one is killed, both Sargok and Olli are seriously injured in the fray.

After the fight, the party explores the rest of the caravan, finding some makeshift living quarters, an infirmary (complete with some healing potions they take), a leader’s quarters of some kind, and a worship room dedicated to Adramalech and festooned with the scarab symbol. In this room, on the altar – stained rust-brown with what appears to be blood – Sargok finds a pile of strange, mostly worthless offerings. A glint catches his eye, and he finds a small gold ring set with a sapphire, which he pockets.

The party then decides to torch the caravan. Olli grabs whatever records he can find from the storeroom, but Sargok won’t allow anyone the time to properly loot the wagon – he prays as it’s burned to the ground. Almak helps ensure that the Infinites don’t call in brigades and fire teams.

Examining the records, Sigmund and Olli realize that Unquestionable Goods & Co. have a physical headquarters in the Temple Quarter of Bazaar; they return to the Sandcastle, and convince the Infinites to give them some men to help raid it.

Sargok returns to Klaeh’mak’s temple, where he discovers that the scarab-on-solar-disk symbol is the holy symbol of Erra, the name Adramalech has used since adopting his mantle as the god of plague.

The party decides to investigate the few leads they have. They take the strange coins found on the cultist to a few merchants, who don’t know anything about them, but finally visit a myantari who’s an expert coin dealer. The little merchant recoils from the coinage, declaring them to be cursed – and says that these coins are only minted in the Iron Dome.

A little taken aback, the party takes the coins to the Infinites; after some back-and-forth with an officer and some bureaucratic wrangling, one of the Infinites’ experts confirms that the coins are, indeed, coined in Adramalech’s name – and possibly inside the Iron Dome.

The Infinites also confirm the identities of the two slain men: Ahab and Mikael, a pair of long-time merchants who worked for Shady Valley Trading, an herb-trading company.

The caravan is going to be in Bazaar for a few more days, so the players meet up with them in the Caravan Quarter. There, the players find out that the pair had recently sold a huge shipment of stracotum herb to a strange outfit known as Unquestionable Goods and Co.; they’d paid well above market price and with freshly smelted gold bars.

Stracotum, as several of the party members knew, is an herb used to create healing potions due to its ability to affect the flow of energy in other living things. That same property means that the herb can also be used for … darker purposes. The group, convinced it’s found its quarry, quickly finds and visits Unquestionable Goods.

The “caravan” rented on the full-size lot consists of a single, windowless car surrounded by milling mercenaries. There’s no sign of other cars or even pack animals. Cautious, the players approach, and a Southron merchant bounds out of the caravan; after finding that they have no mercantile business, he tries to shoo them away, and goes back into the caravan.

The party tries to stop him, but the guards block the way. Their glassy eyes and thousand-yard stares suggest that there’s something wrong with them – but that doesn’t stop the party from cutting them down after hostilities begin. (Who exactly drew first is still a mystery.)

Tonight, Pete as Lluwellyn and Coleman as Almak weren’t with us. We did have Brian, playing a nazon named Lo.

When a player can’t show up, his (or her, if our group changes) character just doesn’t show up. Since I’m building encounters with some play, this won’t affect our sessions too much.

Sooo …

The party further explores the graxxian crypt. There’s a door at the far end – Sargok prepares to open it, and realizes that there’s someone in the room beyond: He can hear them humming. He carefully examines the door, and then kicks it open.

Inside, a Southron is finishing preparations on a body – it’s been tightly wrapped in linens, and he’s painting the same ash-gray paint along its meridians, in the same pattern as the body out in the hall. In the corner of the room is a tied-up nazon and a similarly trussed shadow elf child. Immediately, the Southron – decked in smoked-glass goggles – reaches for one of the several pouches at his waist, and finds: a handful of spell components. He seems to have been reaching for something else.

The heroes are taken aback: The Southron clearly is infected with The Plague. Despite the fear of infection, Sargok charges in, and quickly cuts the Southron down; meanwhile, Sigmund slips in and unbinds the captives.

During that fight, the body in the hallway stumbles to its feet and staggers toward the remaining party members. After a hard-fought battle, in which Olli is temporarily paralyzed by the body’s attacks, the heroes felled the threat with a hail of arrows, spells and rapier thrusts.

The party quickly takes stock of the situation. While they’re unsure if the body is similarly afflicted with undeath, they are certain that it resembles a Solar Knight – Adramalech’s mighty undead warriors. In the meantime, Malek searches the Southron’s body. To his chagrin, one of the pouches is filled with lumicite – and the stones’ magic sunlight fills the room. The body moans, and the party follows the better part of valor – they beat a hasty retreat to Klaeh’mak’s temple, where they can be treated for their exposure to the plague. During the retreat, Olli pushes one of the crypt’s free-standing pillars down, barring the door to the Solar Knight.

At the temple, the group is quickly quarantined in a room, along with a handful of acolytes and a visiting exodite, the head of the Umberstronxian Klaeh’makian church. The room’s magical energy provides nourishment and gentle cleansing of any plague, but requires three days to work.

At the end of the quarantine, the party is introduced to Lt. Gen. Faroukh of the Infinites. They tell him their first-hand experiences with the Solar Knight, the Southron and the crypt, and Lo tells of his kidnapping: He was assaulted at the same time as the merchants who were later turned into undead monsters, and there were at least three assailants.

Faroukh asks the party to join the Infinites as contractors, offering an outrageous wage – 200 gp up front and 1,000 gp a month, plus expenses – as long as they work to root out the cult that has obviously put down roots in Bazaar. Olli talks Faroukh up to 300 gp each up front, and the party agrees to this deal.

About half the group is ex-military; the exceptions are Olli, who’s simply a wandering entertainer who specializes in the theremin; Sigmund, who’s been chased from city to city due to his thieving ways; Malek, a street urchin who’s made a pact with a mysterious lord who lives in the depths of the ocean; and Coleman, who’s a low-ranking officer in the Infinites.

Our adventurers – who have no common past – just all happen to be in the same place in the Caravan Quarter of the Bazaar at the beginning of our story.

While milling about, looking at the wares, they hear the cries of a nobleman – at least, a well-dressed man who’s clearly not used to physical labor – offering to pay 250 gp to anyone who can return his holy symbol of Umberstronx. As the players join the crowd idly listening to the details of where he lost his prized symbol, some of the players notice a handful of Kameshi children cutting people’s purses.

Krrk’thir raises a cry, and one of the children darts off. Checking his belongings, Krrk’thir realizes he’s among the victims, and gives chase – quickly capturing the little thief. Unfortunately, his bag isn’t among that child’s spoils. He forces the child to help him return as many of the purses as he can find, and then gives the rest to an unhelpful band of Infinite guards.

Meanwhile, Olli trips the other child as he’s trying to escape, and Almak threatens the imp, terrifying the rascal. The thief spills what he knows – he’s one of three boys who live in the Temple Quarter, Bazaar’s city proper, and that anyone still missing their bags was likely targeted by their leader. Sargok comforts the child, gives him some bread and sends him on his way.

After sorting out the ill-gotten loot, Malek is still missing his gold. Most of the group agrees to look for the rapscallions’ lair, with Sargok returning to the temple of Klaeh’mak and Almak returning to the Infinite base.

The group does some exploring in the Temple Quarter; as they scour the neighborhood, they’re mistaken for officers investigating the disappearance of two merchants. After clearing that up, they discover that the children are a well-known nuisance near the temple of Klaeh’mak – coincidentally, in the same area that the missing merchants were last scene after they’d had a row.

Meanwhile, Sargok hears from Klaeh’mak during his prayers – the god has detected something foul in the city, but can’t pinpoint it. Concerned that some evil force is hiding from his sight, he directs Sargok to investigate it; coincidentally, the god’s directions cause Sargok to link up with the rest of the adventurers (sans Almak!) at a sewer grate that’s obviously been recently moved.

Almak, for his part, ignores some petty corruption – the same group of layabout Infinite guards is splitting up the booty that Krrk’thir turned in earlier – and is told about a disturbance in Temple Quarter: A group of armed men were slipping into a storm drain near Klaeh’mak’s temple. Bored by his paperwork, he quickly sets off.

That armed group, meanwhile, is exploring an alcove above the storm run-off areas proper. It’s clearly been used by someone as a bunk – three small, disheveled beds are in one corner. Olli ransacks the beds and finds some petty change; he scares something while doing so, and it quickly skitters away.

More interesting, however, is the recently broken-down wall nearby. The group explores it, finding it to be an ancient graxx crypt – one that predates the Iron Age by some time, and perhaps even older than the Golden Age. The bodies wear bronze arm and armament, indicating that they’re from a lost age. Further in, the group finds another shocking discovery: The body of a merchant. He’s had his throat slit, and he’s been painted in some kind of ash or gray pigment; Malek recognizes the paint as an Adramalech rite, following the merchant’s meridians. It’s likely part of some foul, life-and-death magic tied to the evil god.

About this time, Almak arrives, discovering the grate after speaking to the same sources the party had. He creeps into the vault, and then uses his magic to send a whispered message to the party to stop. They start, and turn to find him – but any conflict is deflated by the seriousness of the body. Almak strides deeper into the crypt; as he moves, he hears the sounds of skittering animals, and then feels something dropping to the ground around him.

To their horror, the group realizes they’re surrounded by dismembered hands! The crawling monstrosities began slashing and slamming into the group, who quickly move to smash and hack at the grotesqueries. In a moment of either panic or carelessness, Olli blasts the narrow crypt with Thunder Wave, dispatching many of the creatures but also harming his fellow travelers in the process. However, despite this setback, the party is able to destroy their numerous foes.

We’re going to take about 30 minutes to introduce our characters and another 15 or so to get everyone up to speed on where we are and why we’re together.

Then it’s a short, introductory adventure.

I’m planning on recapping adventures here every Saturday; I’m gonna be doing highlights, rather than blow-by-blows. If there’s any discussion to be had, we can use these pages or hangouts.

Speaking of discussion: One player wants a half-elf. We didn’t really address this; do we want half-things running around? If so, which races are compatible? (That’s a lot of halfs to consider, mang.)

In the future, I’ll also be posting updates here (as well as on our front page), but this place is where i’ll be keeping more detailed, informal updates – things like, “I finished god so-and-so’s page, go check it out and tell me how I flerbed it up, yo.”

The adventure log is where you list the sessions and adventures your party has been on, but for now, we suggest doing a very light “story so far” post. Just give a brief overview of what the party has done up to this point. After each future session, create a new post detailing that night’s adventures.

One final tip: Don’t stress about making your Obsidian Portal campaign look perfect. Instead, just make it work for you and your group. If everyone is having fun, then you’re using Obsidian Portal exactly as it was designed, even if your adventure log isn’t always up to date or your characters don’t all have portrait pictures.